The Reading of an Official Dispatch from the Mexican-American War

Label

When first exhibited, this painting was described as “a family receiving news of the death of one of its members in battle; a friend is reading the newspaper to the wife, whom the rest are endeavoring to console.” The soldier—portrayed in the large full-length portrait hanging in the background—leaves his grieving wife, their daughter, his parents, and a brother who leans on the back of their father’s chair. At the lower right, the soldier’s son is surrounded with toys—the drums of battle, a sword, and a soldier on horseback—that suggest he will one day serve in the United States military. A printed reproduction of John Trumbull’s The Declaration of Independence looms over the scene at the upper right, reminding the viewer of the human sacrifices required of nationhood. Revolutionary imagery reappeared with increasing frequency during the Mexican-American War (1846–48). The war inspired patriotism among some and criticism from others due to the casualties and expense. It likewise complicated questions about the fate of slavery and Indigenous sovereignty as the United States expanded westward.

From the 2025-26 exhibition Revolution Reconsidered: History, Myth, and Propaganda, curated by Michael W. Hartman (Jonathan Little Cohen Curator of American Art), Haely Chang (Jane and Raphael Bernstein Associate Curator of East Asian Art), Elizabeth Rice Mattison (Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art), Ashley B. Offill (Curator of Collections), and Evonne Fuselier (Hood Museum Board of Advisors Mutual Learning Fellow)

Exhibition History

The American Scene, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, October 29-November 22, 1969, no. 63.

American Art Union, New York, 1849, no. 236.

Revolution Reconsidered: History, Myth, and Propaganda, Harteveldt Family Gallery and Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 18, 2025 - August 8, 2026.

Publication History

"The American Scene" (New York: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, 1969), ill. p. 51.

The Magazine Antiques (April 1970), 511.

Mark Edward Thistlewhaite, "The Image of George Washington: Studies in Mid-Nineteeenth-Century American History Painting" (PhD Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1977), p. 28, ill. 26.

Hermann Warner Williams, Jr., Mirror to the American Past: A Survey of American Genre Painting: 1750-1900 (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1973), ill. p. 81.

Provenance

G. M. Bowen, New York, 1849; with Hirschl & Adler, New York, by 1969; Maude B. Feld, New York, until 1995; private collection; Sotheby’s, New York, “Americana” sale N11577, 25 January 2025, Lot 347; sold to present collection, 2025.

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